


Bodies and Minds

by clawstoagunfight (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Gore, Happy Ending, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magic, Magically Altered Perception, Mutilation, Nemeton, No Characters Are Actually Physically Hurt, Pack Cuddles, Pack Feels, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1582211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/clawstoagunfight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and his pack suffer an effect of the nemeton and are able to see other people's mental wounds manifested into their physical form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bodies and Minds

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for [Badgers](http://scottmcslut.tumblr.com/), for being the best cheerleader ever (and also a great friend) and was inspired by a conversation we had.
> 
> Un beta'd, so all of the mistakes are mine.

They don’t mean for things to go this badly. It’s chance that all of them happen to be by the nemeton—Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Kira, Derek—when the magic in the air changes, charges the night with something that puts all of them on edge. It’s not like a blast or a wave when it finally happens—more like a wind that sends a shiver down all of their spines and makes all of them loose their breath for an infinite moment.

They don’t feel any different at first, each of them check themselves over, taking stock to make sure that they are okay. It’s Scott who becomes aware of the others first. He can sense Stiles behind him, unharmed, if smelling a little of anxiety, and Kira somewhere he can’t see her, but she seems to be okay, as well. Scott takes a step, almost falling over one of the giant roots, and looks up to where he remembers Derek being before the magic—or whatever it was—happened.

But Derek isn’t there anymore. Instead, there is a dark shape—a figure that resembles something akin to a human, but not quite, with bits of fur over skin that looks like it’s been melted; bloody, with darker bits of seared flesh ashing away. It looks like there’s some part of the thing that’s smoldering, like there are embers trapped somewhere inside of its skin and it’s burning up from the inside. The thing is without legs, its decrepit body dragging itself over the ground with one bloody nub, coming out of what looks like its shoulder. The other arm is gone, looks like it’s been ripped off, the wound still oozing blood and black bits, the flesh seared around it and flaking off into the wind.

It’s a horrible sight, maybe the worst thing Scott has ever seen. The creature’s mouth opens and its fangs lengthen, eyes—hard to see with the fiery glow behind them—flashing a steely blue that the wolf inside of him responds to. The thing lets out a sound, like  a growl, and embers spit from where its lips should be, like the fire burning inside of him is trying its best to consume the creature from inside, to burn out what’s left of it. Scott can smell the scent of charred flesh when the wind changes and it makes him sick.

Scott’s on the defensive, getting himself ready to attack whatever this thing is, trying to protect the pack members behind him, when he chances a glance over his shoulder to tell Stiles and Kira to run. His mouth is open, fangs already out, when he sees that there’s something else behind him.

It’s something different than the thing slowly making its way toward him, something almost worse. Behind him is something that makes his stomach twist—a huddled, twisted human-shaped thing. It’s black—so black—inky darkness that seems to stain the air around it, the ground beneath it. The darkness seems to seep out from the wounds on its body—half of its form looking ruined, with pieces missing, like it was attacked by vicious animals. The head looks garish, bits of skull and grey matter exposed, eyes sunken, irises foggy and lifeless. The mouth nothing more than a jagged line spewing more inky black. A twisted limb reaches out toward its side—toward where Kira is standing.

Kira looks different. She looks like how she did the first time he saw her fox form at the black light party—but her shape is more solid somehow, bigger, like the animal is closer to the surface. Her tails are fanning out around her, the ends of them thick with blood that drips down onto the ground, making garish patterns on the dirt. Scott can still see her through the fox, though. “Kira, run!” he yells, feeling a growl accompany his words, letting the wolf inside of him rise up. He won’t let these grotesque figures hurt his friends—not again—never, ever again.

He takes a step away from the figure at his back, turning so that he’s situated in between them, his eyes on both of them. He scans across the clearing for anymore creatures and sees something else—one last figure. It looks like a woman—tall and willowy, with long white hair moving in the wind, wrapping around her enough to obscure her face for a moment. There’s a hole in her chest, beside her heart, bone stark and white where it’s chipped off inside of the wound, blood and other things leaking messily down her torso. There’s a black arrow sticking out of her stomach and what looks like am infected wound on her side, dark, puffy veins carrying the sickness from the wound further into her body. Her hair moves and he sees her face. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, eyes wide and white, lips gone, leaving the mouth forever open.

He hears a growl from his right and looks over at the first creature, the one burning away into the night. They eyes are blue still, and there’s something familiar in them, even as Scott shifts into beta form, even as he moves forward, even as the creature drags itself closer, fiery mouth opening.

“What have you done with my friends?” Scott yells the question, feels the fear and frustration in his voice. “Where are they?”

The first figure stops suddenly, its head cocking a little to the side. Its terrible mouth opens again, but this time, it speaks. “Scott? Scott, is that you?”

And the words—the voice—sounds like _Derek_.

Scott feels his heart flip over, beating faster, pounding away inside of his head. “D-Derek?” His voice is almost a whisper, eyes scanning over the creature again. There’s no resemblance to the person he knows, except for the blue eyes staring back at him. The creature looks at him for a long moment before it—Derek—nods.

“Scott?” he hears Stiles croak. Scott looks around frantically for his best friend, but he’s still surrounded by the forsaken creatures and Kira’s animal form. “Scott?” He hears again and finally realizes where it’s coming from. The inky black figure is taking a step closer to him, its twisted, goopy fingers reaching out toward him. “Scott, is that really you?” It’s Stiles. Stiles, whose foggy, dead eyes are looking him over. “What happened to you?” Stiles sounds so sad, his voice all but breaking on the words.

Scott looks down at himself, holding both of his hands out in front of himself but he can’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What do you mean? What about what happened to you guys?”

The willowy woman moves closer as well, stepping up beside Kira. “Scott,” and it’s Lydia—of course it’s Lydia— “You—you look—”

It’s eerily quiet for a long, long moment, the rest of them all looking at Scott like he’s grown a second head or like they’ve never really seen him before.

“Scott, you—” Stiles starts, his inky black figure shifting a little closer. “You look like a wolf. Like when we saw that half of Laura’s body turn back into a wolf. But you…you’re all hunched over and—and—”

“One of your arms is missing,” Derek adds, voice strangely flat. “Like it’s been ripped off.” Scott looks over at him, at the similar wound on Derek’s form and opens his mouth to say something about it, but then Derek continues. “And your—your chest is a mess. It looks like something tore into you. I can see your rib cage and some of the organs underneath. There’s blood everywhere. It looks like your entire torso has had the skin torn off of it. And it looks like—your heart—there’s something wrong with it.”

“W-what do you mean, something wrong with it?”

But Derek turns his head away, more ash flaking off of him with the movement.

It’s Lydia who speaks next. “Your heart looks like there’s a piece of it missing. It’s got black all around it. And—” she clears her throat, “it looks like the black is infecting it, somehow.”

There’s another long moment of silence before Scott shakes his head, letting out a heavy sigh. “Does everyone feel okay, though? I mean, none of you are hurt?”

They all appease him with “good to go”s or “I’m fine”s, before he says, “Maybe we should call Deaton.”

~

“It’s sound like it’s a case of each of you being able to see the mental wounds of each other as if it were manifested into a physical form.” Deaton tells them.

“What—what do you mean, our mental wounds?” Scott asks hesitantly into the phone, where he’s holding it out for the rest of them to hear Deaton on speakerphone.

“Imagine if every mental or emotional hardship you’ve felt in your life had left a mark—a sort of wound on your soul. This seems to me to be simply a materialization of said wounds. It could potentially just be some magical backlash from the nemeton. You said strange things had been happening there, yes?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, “that’s what the Sheriff said. There have been reports of people sleepwalking and ending up near it, or people hearing strange things out in the woods. Nothing really that different than normal, but there’s been more of it.”

Deaton makes a humming sound, but remains silent.

“Wait,” Stiles says suddenly, “you said potentially, as in there’s a possibility it could be something else entirely?”

Deaton is quiet for a moment. “I’ve heard of things like this happening. It’s rare, but there could be a chance the nemeton chose for this to happen to all of you, to teach all of you something.”

“To teach us what?” Lydia questions.

“I’ve heard of occasions where something of powerful magic chooses creatures to protect it. However, the magic seeks out only the best to do the job. This could be a test; the nemeton finding such a rare group of people together and wanting to test the strength and conviction of you all. Perhaps it sensed Scott and his pack bonds to all of you.”

Kira takes a step closer to the phone. “What does that mean, though? If this is a test, what do we have to do?”

Deaton sighs lightly though the line. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that. Perhaps it’s something you all must discover for yourselves.”

~

Deaton tells them all to go about their lives as normal. Scott rides back to Stiles’ house with him, trying not to throw glances at his best friend, especially when he leaves black stains on the seat and the gearshift that seem to soak into the interior.

Derek took Kira and Lydia home, but neither Scott nor Stiles wants to be alone right now, so they stick together, walking into Stiles’ house to find the sheriff sitting there on the couch, TV on, reading over a report he brought home from the station. He barely throws them a glance when they walk in—and that’s good. He doesn’t seem to be able to see their mental forms, thank god.

“You boys get everything figured out?” Stiles and Scott must be too quiet for too long, because the sheriff sets his file aside and stands up, making to walk over to Stiles, probably to make sure he’s okay.

It’s only when he’s at his full height that Scott sees the gaping hole in Stiles’ father’s chest. It’s as if his heart has been ripped out of it, leaving nothing but bloody carnage in its wake, dark blood sluggishly dripping from the wound. Scott hears Stiles gasp and knows that he must be able to see it, as well. And that’s strange. That’s something they all hadn’t counted on. They thought it would just affect the five of them, that they would just be able to see one another, not everyone else they came into contact with.

The sheriff speeds up at the sound Stiles makes and wraps him in a hug, Stiles leaving dark, goopy smudges all over his father’s back as he clings to him, whispering words that Scott chooses not to hear. He walks back out the front door, getting his cell phone out of his pocket. He calls Kira first, tells her that the effects of what the nemeton did aren’t limited to just them, but that they can see everyone’s mental wounds.

She takes it in stride and he hears her tell Derek. She tells him they just dropped Lydia off, so he lets them go and calls her to tell her the same thing.

“Yeah, thanks, Scott, but you’re a little late to the party.” She lets out a small sigh and he hears the faint sound of another voice saying “sorry” before she speaks again. “I walked into my bedroom and found a dirty, bloody coyote waiting for me. On my bed.”

Scott can’t help it, he lets out a laugh that Malia apparently can hear, so she steals the phone from Lydia—or that’s what Scott assumes is happening by the rustling and brief yelling happening in the background. “Hey, so, Lydia says she doesn’t know what she looks like—can you tell me?”

Scott rubs a hand over the nape of his neck, shivering a little in the cooling breeze. “Um. I don’t really think I should. If Lydia wants to know, I’ll tell her and she can tell you if she wants.”

He hears Malia huff before she bites out a “fine” and ends the call.

Scott puts his phone back in his pocket and heads back inside. Stiles is telling his dad he’s fine, just tired, and the sheriff looks over from Stiles’ face to Scott, conveying a silent question in his expression. Scott nods as subtly as he can and the sheriff relaxes.

“Okay. You boys go get some sleep, you hear? You both look like crap.”

Both Stiles and Scott chuckle a little bit before they make their way up the stairs. Stiles’ room looks the same as ever, if in a slight state of disarray from the research he has no doubt been doing last night. Scott watches Stiles’ dark figure make its way over to the bed before he collapses on top, mumbling something unintelligible into the pillows.

Scott’s distracted by the black and other things oozing out of Stiles’ side where it’s ruined and it takes him longer than it should for him to realize Stiles is saying something to him. “What?”

Stiles sighs. “I said, are you gonna stand there all night, or do you want to get on the bed?” Scott nods, steals himself, and walks the few paces to the bed, sitting down gingerly on the mattress, on where Stiles has stained the blanket black. He can hear the frown in Stiles’ voice when he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Scott shakes his head, scooting up the bed to lie beside Stiles’ figure. He closes his eyes for a second and reaches out, his hand finding Stiles’—Stiles’ _real_ hand, the one that he’s known for as long as they’ve been friends. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

He feels Stiles shift on the bed and when he open his eyes, Stiles’ dark, twisted figure is hunched over him, foggy, dead eyes staring down at him. He tries not to show the flinch, but from the way Stiles gasps, he knows the other man saw it.

“Wow, am I really that hideous?”

Scott closes his eyes again. “No—Stiles—it’s not that at all. It’s just—” He sighs, opening his eyes and reaching out to set a hand on Stiles’ un-wounded shoulder. He sees the inky goop cover his hand, but he can’t actually _feel_ it, so he counts that as a win. It’s not until a second later, when his mouth is open to say something else, that he sees it. Stiles skin—the part under Scott’s hand—is clearing up. The inky darkness clinging to it starts to disappear. Scott gasps and removes his hand—but then the blackness starts to come back. He puts his hand back, this time covering more of Stiles’ shoulder. Once again, his skin starts to clear. “Dude! Put your hand on my arm.”

Stiles lifts his arm, but hesitates a moment before he tentatively sets it down on Scott’s shoulder. It’s not long before he hears Stiles mutter “No way! Dude, your arm is _starting to grow back holy hell_!”

The cleared skin seems to be expanding out from under Scott’s hand, making Stiles’ whole right arm and part of his torso look like it’s going back to normal. Scott looks up and catches Stiles’ jagged, dripping mouth in a grin that terrifies him for a moment, before he lifts his other hand up to cup Stiles’ face, hoping it will help to clear his face back to the best friend of his memory. It’s not long before it starts to work, Stiles’ brown eyes clearing of their fog, his mouth turning back to his tilting grin. He’s surprised when he feels Stiles’ hand press to his cheek as well, even though he _knows_ that he probably doesn’t look any better to Stiles than he does to Scott, looking like a wolf and all.

“You’re not hideous, you know,” Scott says after a while. “You’re just—I dunno. Scary. Terrifying, really.”

Stiles’ lips turn down in a frown and he moves his face a little further into Scott’s hand, like he’s trying to will away the darkness still clinging to his skin, just so it can make Scott feel better. “What do I look like?”

Scott’s mouth twists. “Wounded. Dark. There’s just so much darkness, it’s hard to see anything else.” Scott swallows hard, looking away from watching Stiles’ skull start to mend. “I just didn’t expect for you to look so…” He trails off, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to put the feeling into words, why Stiles’ mental wounds bothered him more than anyone else.

“Damaged?” Stiles asks, voice quiet.

Scott nods silently.

Stiles sighs, “Yeah. That’s kinda what it was like for me with you. I—I guess I never realized how much what happened affected you. You’re just better at hiding how you feel on the inside.”

He thinks about what Stiles, Kira, Lydia, and Derek told him he looks like. He thinks about how they said it looked like something was wrong with his heart. And he can admit, if not out loud, than to himself—that ever since Allison’s death, something inside of him hadn’t quite felt right. He had pushed the feeling down, pushed it away, not letting himself think about _why_ that might be. He never really told anyone—other than his mother—about what it had felt like to lose Allison. He never told anyone how it felt like there was a part of him missing—how he felt weaker, incomplete somehow.

Stiles moves his hand from Scott’s shoulder down his arm, until his fingers are wrapping around Scott’s. “Hey,” Stiles says, his word soft, like he knows Scott’s thinking about her again and he doesn’t want to intrude, but he also has something of his own on his mind, “You know, Cora told me, before she left, that when a werewolf loses a member of its pack, it’s like they lose a limb.”

Scott looks from where he’d been staring at their joined fingers, up to look Stiles in the eye. He feels the pad of Stiles’ thumb softly sweeping over his cheek and presses his face into the touch. Neither of them say the obvious—that Scott’s right arm was apparently missing. Scott doesn’t voice how that make sense, how that accounts for the feeling of incompleteness he’s had.

And then his thoughts, briefly, turn to Derek. Scott thinks about his crippled, hobbled form. “That explains a lot about Derek.”

Stiles sighs, but nods in assent. “I will never again call him an emotional cripple, I swear to god.”

Scott can’t help but let out a small chuckle. “Lydia looked badass, though.” He adds, because he really doesn’t know what else to say.

Stiles laughs. “She looked like something straight out of a horror movie, but like, in the best way possible.” Stiles sobers a little before he bites on his bottom lip for a moment. “Do you think it will go away soon?”

He doesn’t have to guess what Stiles is thinking about—knows it’s probably got something to do with what his dad looked like. Scott feels for him. He doesn’t even want to imagine what his own mother would look like to him like this. Scott sighs and before he really even thinks about it, he’s wrapping his arms around Stiles in a hug. “I don’t know, Stiles. I hope so.”

It’s not long after that, that the two of them fall asleep, arms still wrapped around each other, needing the extra comfort that the embrace offers to carry them off into what each of them hope will be a dreamless night.

~

The morning brings with it Scott blinking open his eyes to see Stiles—his regular, normal looking Stiles—still laying down on the bed beside him. He can’t contain the sound of excitement that leaves his mouth. Stiles rockets awake, limbs failing, accidentally elbowing Scott in the stomach. “Wassit? Wasshapp’ning?” He blinks rapidly at Scott before his brain seems to catch up to what he’s seeing. “Dude,” he croaks. “You look like you again!”

Scott smiles and the two of them make their way off the bed, separating from one another. They head downstairs, Stiles’ father already having left, and make some breakfast. They eat in relative silence, each of them throwing glances at the other, as if seeing if this reprieve from the physicality of each other’s mental wounds is just a temporary thing, or if it’s gone for good.

When they are still themselves once they are done eating, Scott decides to call Deaton again and tell him the news.

~

“So basically what you’re saying is to cuddle with someone for nine hours.” Derek sounds unamused, his words dripping with sarcasm as they filter through the speaker.

Scott catches Stiles rolling his eyes. “No, Derek. Deaton said that it sounds like the magic was to encourage closeness between the pack. So it can’t just be anyone. And it’s not cuddling,” Stiles sounds a little embarrassed saying the words and Scott ducks his head to hide his grin. “Lydia said Malia stayed the night and when she woke up, Malia looked the same as she always does. We’re heading over to her place now to see if it worked for sure, though.”

Derek’s quiet for a long while before he bites out, “Fine. I’ll wake Kira up and see if she wants to watch some Buffy with me.”

Scott chokes on the orange juice he’d been drinking. “Wake her up? What do you mean? Is Kira there with you?”

Derek sighs into the phone. “Yes, Scott. She’s sleeping on the couch. She, um, does that sometimes.”

Scott grins, even though Derek can’t see. “Oh, really? How long has this been going on?” He asks the words, maybe teasing him a little.

Derek clears his throat, but doesn’t rise to the bait. “None of your business. Can I go now?”

Scott laughs and Derek says something about hanging up before Stiles speaks. “Hey, remember to put your arm around her, or something, though! It can’t just be proximity. It has to be physical touch.”

Derek grumbles something unintelligible into the phone before he hangs up.

Scott and Stiles look at each other for a long moment before both of them bust out laughing.

~

It turns out that Lydia is not, in fact, back to normal. She looks less disturbing, in a way, like certain parts of her are muddled between her mental form and her regular physical form, but she’s still the willowy, white figure from before, just as terrifying.

Malia, whose still-more-coyote-than-not form is perched on the end of the bed, sighs. “Wait, so it didn’t work?” Lydia comes over to sit down next to her.

Lydia shakes her head. “No, I think it worked.” She motions to Scott and Stiles, who are both leaning against the doorway. “They look a little more like themselves. Sort of.”

Stiles nods. “You, too.”

Lydia’s face scrunches up a little, like she’s thinking of something. “So, Deaton said that from the sounds of it, this—” she waves her hand, “thing that happened to us is supposed to encourage pack closeness in some way, right?”

Scott nods, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah, that’s what he said. Something about the nemeton having chosen this pack to be its protectors or something.”

Lydia hums. “Well, that makes sense.”

Everyone in the room stares blankly at her for a moment. She rolls her eyes. “If the nemeton wants us to be its guardians or whatever, then it makes sense that it would want a strong pack to protect it. So, it would be reasonable to assume that the strength of a pack comes from its dependence upon one another.”

Stiles walks closer to the girls on the bed. “We can’t get back to looking like our real selves without the help of the pack—the _whole_ pack.”

Lydia beams. “Exactly!”

Malia looks back and forth between the other three. “So, does this mean we are going to Derek’s?”

Scott and Lydia nod, even as Stiles groans.

~

It doesn’t take long for them to get to the loft. The four of them walk up the stairs and let themselves in. They’ve long since learned that the door to Derek’s loft is never actually locked, so Scott just pulls open the door and follows the other three inside.

Kira and Derek look over from where they are sitting on the couch, Derek with his mangled half-arm resting over Kira’s fox-shaped back. Both of them start asking questions at the same time, so Stiles and Lydia make quick work of telling them what they’ve all only just figured out.

They all are silent for a moment, Kira and Derek still on the couch, the others standing around, before Lydia takes the initiative to plop down on the couch next to Kira. “Well, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” She puts her willowy arm through Kira’s and lowers her head onto Kira’s shoulder. Malia jumps onto the couch next to her, making the others bounce a little and laugh, before she lays her head down in Lydia’s lap and throws her arm over Kira’s legs.

Scott smiles at the display, so many strange creatures in front of him—in varying shades of nightmares—seeming to become more solid in front of him with the help of the rest of the pack. Scott moves over to sit down on Derek’s other side and Stiles follows suit. Scott tries not to think about the heat he can almost viscerally feel coming off of Derek’s form, the ashy embers that are still glowing and burning in a sickening manner. He just snakes his arm around Derek’s shoulders and holds on. Derek is tense for a long moment before he relaxes into it and lets out a sigh like he’s been holding his breath.

It’s halfway through the first episode when something that’s been nagging at Scott’s insides come to the surface. “I’m sorry.” He says quietly when there’s a break in the dialogue on the show. Kira scrambles for the remote to pause it, even as he feels eyes of everyone else on him. “I’m sorry that you guys are so messed up. I should’ve—I should’ve done something more.” He picks at a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt. “If I would’ve known what was going on inside of all of you, I—”

“Scott,” Stiles cuts him off, pressing his fingertips hard into Scott’s arm, a hint of desperation in his tone, “Scott, stop. There’s nothing you could have done, buddy.”

Scott’s lips twist into a grimace. “I could’ve _tried_ , though. I’m your alpha. I should’ve known, somehow. I—I failed you all.”

Derek’s shaking his head next to him, reaching his newly grown back hand out to pat Scott on the knee. “Scott. Look at me.” Scott looks up, drawn by the sound of Derek’s steady voice—Derek, the most damaged of them all. “It’s not your fault.” He tells him with steal in his voice. “You know that, right?”

Scott doesn’t say anything, just bites on his bottom lip.

“We would probably all be so much worse without you, Scott.” Lydia says from the other side of Kira, her fingers squeezing a little harder around his. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be dead by now.”

Malia shifts and draws Scott’s attention. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be full of shame and guilt and self-loathing. You helped me to realize that I’m more than just an animal, Scott.”

“There are things that happen to us that are out of your control.” Kira adds, giving him a small smile and reaching behind Derek to ruffle the hair at the nape of Scott’s neck.

“Besides,” Stiles adds unhappily, “you had your own stuff to deal with. Maybe it’s all of us that failed you.”

Scott looks over at Stiles, eyebrows drawn together, lips pressing together in a frown. “Stiles. That’s not—you guys could never—please, don’t ever think that.”

Stiles holds his gaze for a long moment, giving Scott an intense look that he can’t bring himself to look away from. “So why don’t we all agree that no one is to blame, okay? We all just had our own stuff to deal with. If anything, we all helped each other, not hurt. Sound good?” They all make sounds of assent and Scott finally nods at Stiles. The other boy smiles and shifts so that he can set his head on Scott’s shoulder.

After that, they all settle back into their former positions, staying like that for a long time, working through half of the first season of Buffy. Derek orders some Italian take-out and they all eat it, sitting around on Derek’s couch. At some point, Stiles starts telling horribly bad jokes with pop culture references that neither Malia nor Derek understand and the rest of them have to try to explain it to them.

At the end of the night, when Scott’s stomach hurts from laughing so hard, when he’s curled up on the couch with his packmates around him—his arm on Derek’s shoulder, Stiles’ knees draped over his lap, Lydia’s fingers laced with his behind Kira’s head, Malia asleep at the opposite end of the couch—he feels something inside of him settle. It’s not as if the missing piece inside of him suddenly shifts into place; it’s nothing so dramatic. It’s just a subtle thing—a feeling of contentment, of a happiness that settles inside of him that he hadn’t allowed himself to really feel in a while.

It feels good—feels _right_ to be sitting here with his pack—with his friends.

As he’s looking at all of them, it occurs to them that he can finally see them all without the cloudy air of their mental wounds clinging to them. He doesn’t say anything, though, doesn’t want to ruin the moment and have their time together come to an end just yet. So, he smiles and presses a little closer into the touches around him, settling his attention back on the show.

~

Scott goes the nemeton early one morning a couple weeks later, just as the sun breaks the sky. He’s not really sure why he’s out here, alone, sitting on the ground in front of the thing that used to plague his dreams. He’s not sure why; it’s nothing more than a massive stump. But even as he thinks that, he knows it’s not true. The nemeton is like its own living thing, something to be feared as much as worshiped.

It looks like something ethereal today, like something out of a fairytale, with rose-gold light falling down onto it, the birds of spring singing songs all around the clearing like they are serenading it. It looks beautiful—every bit like the beacon it’s become.

Scott takes a deep breath. “I don’t know why you chose us,” he tells it quietly, his words barely heard over the tweeting of the birds, reaching a hand out to press it against the aged bark, “but thank you.”

He doesn’t have to say why, doesn’t even really know how to put it into words even if he could. Things had been different since the effects of the magic—or whatever it had been—had worn off. Everyone seemed to be smiling more, hanging out more, working together, confiding in one another—just small things, really, but things that had made a difference to all of them. They had all been acting more like friends—like people who _wanted_ to be together, instead of a bunch of people who were just thrust together as a product of their circumstances. It had been really great to see, to feel like his pack is on its way to becoming the type of pack that they _should_ be.

Scott gets lost in his thoughts, memories of his friends over the last couple weeks tugging his lips up into a smile of their own volition. But then he feels it—a crackle to the air. It’s different than the last time, less of a charge that makes his wolf stand on edge, and more like static electricity, or the feeling the air gets right before a summer storm. It’s something softer this time, and it gentles over him, almost like rain.

Instead of the power in the air stealing his breath, it seems to fill his lungs, fill his body, and lighten his heart.

He thinks maybe it’s the nemoton’s way of saying a thank you of its own.

~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
> Also, come talk to me on [tumblr](http://clawstoagunfight.tumblr.com/)!


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